#HomeForHalloween: Win a Kindle Fire, Nook, or Kobo Glo

Thanks for helping THE HOME hit the Top 100 on Kindle and Nook. That triggered the bonus ereader giveaway, so now there are TWO! Enter below or you can drop by the book blogs listed to the right and read exclusive excerpts and enter. Also writer J. Thorn and Dodge Winston were kind enough to host the rafflecopter today. (Any blogger who wants to host for a day, let me know!)
Amazon 
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble 
Kobo

Experiments at a group home for troubled children lead to paranormal activity--and the ghosts are former residents of the home's past as an insane asylum. In development as a feature film.

Today's daily special: Story collection box set MAD STACKS free at Amazon US and Amazon UK


To celebrate the launch of The Home, you can win your choice of a Kindle Fire, a Nook HD 8G, or a Kobo Glo (two separate winners total). Other prizes include MP3-CD audiobooks of Liquid Fear and Chronic Fear, and signed copies of Chronic Fear, Monsters Inc., Drummer Boy, If I Were Your Monster, and Dirt. I'll also be randomly selecting Twitter RTs for a $20 gift card each week that use the #HomeForHalloween hashtag. If The Home hits the Top 20 on any of the ebook outlets during October, I'll give away an extra bonus device of the winner's choice.

If you don't use social media, you can enter by emailing bigkindleboogie@yahoo.com. Thanks and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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The Red Church - Ten Years After

Ten years after.

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the release of THE RED CHURCH, my first novel. And although I had some short story sales before then, I generally consider THE RED CHURCH the start of my professional writing career as well. Ten years. A lot of books. I'm torn between feeling like a worn-out geezer and a guy finally figuring out what he wants to do with his life, but the reality is I am probably in the "middle age" of my writing career.

Today, with the whirlwind of digital books, foreign translations, eBookSwag.com, and basically running a tiny enterprise as a mad-emperor/demi-god, I have a hard time remembering the freshness of that feeling of accomplishment. I can still remember receiving the phone call from the year before, when the editor told me he wanted to publish the book, and the subsequent search for an agent. I remember the careful planning I put into preparing for the book's release (which I outlined in a monthly series leading up to the book's publication--boy, how times have changed!) I can't remember much about my life at the time, although it was fraught with self-inflected personal troubles.

But the thing that stands out clearly is that feeling of writing the book, the way I entered that fantasy land and followed the story from beginning to end, walked in Ronnie Day's shoes (and ran, in some cases), meeting the peculiar folk of Whispering Pines. The book felt fresh when I typed it, felt fresh when it was published, and still feels fresh today. Perhaps that is why it is still my bestselling and most popular book, even after 10 years.

I'm not even sure how many copies have sold, but it's probably around 80,000 now--not a knockout bestseller but the Little Engine That Could (well,  it was out of print and not on sale for half of its life...but that's another blog post for another day). It was a Stoker Award finalist (lost out to The Lovely Bones!), and an alternate selection of the Mystery Guild and in the Doubleday Book Clubs back when mail-order was a force more powerful than Amazon. It's been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Polish, and soon Portuguese and German. It's been around the block. It's been equally slammed for being a Christian novel disguised as a horror novel and a horror novel disguised as a Christian novel. It's inspired theological essays and critical analysis and a Bentley Little blurb, and the heady but rather commonplace Stephen King comparisons. Perhaps its greatest feat was impressing my daughter when she saw THE RED CHURCH on the Kindle charts ahead of Stephen King and C.S. Lewis...

THE RED CHURCH. Ten years, and I can still smell the dusty hay when I open that creaking church door...

I still feel the chill of the river fog laying low over the Appalalachian valley...

I still hear the rustle and slither of that shadow in the belfry...

Ten years after, I still live in THE RED CHURCH, and I always will.

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DIALOGUE Blogtalk interview: Audio Archive, June 28

Free Scott Nicholson books on Kindle:

June 28-30: Creative Spirit (UK edition only)

June 29-30: Scott Nicholson Library, Vol. 5 (Amazon UK only)

June 29-30, July 1: Mad Stacks (Amazon US Amazon UK)

Simon Wood: Overnight Success 13 years later

I've been crossing internet paths with Simon Wood for years, since we both worked in the mystery and horror genres and occasionally showed up in the same publications. Simon was kind enough to grant me use of a story for my Curtains collection, and over the last few months his hard work built to critical mass--with some luck, timing, but most of all great storytelling. Simon is one of those writers who has you looking over your shoulder when you're reading, waiting for the next twist or betrayal)

Simon:

I remember when Marc Anthony exploded onto the music scene a few years ago.  He described himself as a “ten-year overnight sensation.”  I loved the remark when I heard it.  He’d been cutting records for a decade before his first breakout hit, but everyone assumed that he’d just gotten into the business.  The comment let the world know he’d been working his butt off for a long time before success found him, and it also gave you an idea of his dedication to his art.

Marc Anthony's dedication is something I understand very well.   I’ve been working away in the publishing salt mines since 1998.  Whereas success comes quick for some, it’s taken its time with me.  I struggled to find an agent when I shopped my first novel, ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN, and without an agent, editors wouldn’t read it.  I found success in the small press arena where an agent wasn’t a necessity.  ACCIDENTS was published in 2002 with a modest print run of 3,000.  Sadly, the small press struggled with distribution, but I picked up some nice trade notices that helped my profile.  The good word of mouth failed to land me an agent or a major publisher, although there were a few close calls.

However, the good notices enabled me to pick up deals with other small presses.  I finally entered the world of New York publishing in 2007, but again not in the normal manner, which is common for me.  Still without an agent, I took advantage of a pitch session at a conference.  The editor liked what I had to say and three days later, I had a contract offer from Dorchester Publishing on a revised and updated version of ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN.  Finally, I had a mass paperback deal, but Dorchester was a small player in traditional publishing and the book never got the distribution I hoped.

Distribution is a harsh lesson I’ve learned over the years.  Without it, a book’s success is hard to achieve.  I went on to do four books with Dorchester, until their much-publicized financial problems last year.  I found myself in the unenviable situation of trying to promote a book that became unavailable part way through a book tour.

Just as my Dorchester problems were coming to a head, I’d been experimenting with eBooks by publishing my backlist.  I must admit I wasn’t sure what I was doing at the beginning.  I think it took me a while to understand that the digital book market doesn’t work the same way as the print book market.  In February, I relaunched my Dorchester titles.  Between February and June, I promoted one of the titles.  I learned that success in the eBook market is through recommendations from trusted sources.  I sent out review copies and press releases to websites and bloggers with strong followers and their thumbs up worked.

ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN struck a chord with people and momentum took over.  Eventually, someone, somewhere was mentioning ACCIDENTS daily.  The sales spiked in April and kept spiking.  By June, it was in the top 100 books at Amazon.  Then Amazon featured the book at the end of June and sales truly exploded and the book reached the #2 spot.  I’m quite frightened and staggered by the number of sales this titles has had in the last three months.  The nice knock-on effect from all this is that a rising tide raises all boats.  Over the last four months, all my titles have seen a boost.  THE FALL GUY has followed ACCIDENTS’ example by reaching the top 100.  ASKING FOR TROUBLE has done really well for a short story collection and I think WE ALL FALL DOWN will be the next to break.  It has been quietly selling over the last couple of months and I think it will be my next bestseller.

So, from an outsider’s perspective, my success has been recent.  To my wife and I, it’s been thirteen years in the making.  While my fortunes have rarely run to script, one thing hasn’t changed and that’s my dedication to my writing.  My single focus for over a decade has been to have a career as a writer.  I’ve worked hard at my craft, learned the ins and outs of the industry, hustled when I’ve needed to,  sweet-talked and strategized to get the one thing any writer desires—readers.  Finally, that’s happening for me.  Success is sometimes an accident waiting to happen, but it never happen without hard work and determination.

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www.simonwood.net 

www.facebook.com/simonwoodwrites

http://twitter.com/simonwoodwrites

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Simon Wood: It's No Accident

This guy's probably one of the more humble writers around--anyone else hitting #2 on the Kindle bestseller list behind Janet Evanovich would be screaming about how great they were. But I've known Simon Wood since before the Kindle era, and he's just a hard-working and talented writer who takes nothing for granted. A former PI and race-car driver, he's won a slew of mystery awards for his short fiction and now he's getting a wider audience with his novels after publishing in paperback with Leisure books and other presses.

His fiction features lots of twists, duplicitous characters, con men, liars, conniving females, backstabbers, and well-crafted writing.

1. First, congratulations on your success. Since we've been sharing ideas for a while, along with Debbi Mack, it's good to see we've all had some luck. And for you, it must seem like a slow grind to the top of the Kindle bestseller list, while from a distance it may seem you're an overnight success. What do you think created the tipping point to break through?

Yes, It’s been a slow haul from my point of view.

I think the success surrounding ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN came from having a game plan for the book.  I have eleven books in eBook form, but I made the decision to focus on one title at a time instead of all of them at once, because it’s too much noise for the readers if have too many titles for people to choose from.  I got ACCIDENTS out to bloggers and review sites with strong followings and provided them with copies of the book.  Their endorsements got some sales traction.  People saw that and they in turn discovered the book and recommended it and momentum took over. 

In the end, there seemed to be some website mentioning the book every day and that helped push the book in Amazon top 100 at the beginning of the month.  Then Amazon endorsed the book by sending out an email blast and it pushed the book over the top.  While there was no predicting what Amazon did, I think the tipping started three months ago when I made sure there was a grass roots following for the book.  Once people latched onto it, I helped give it a nudge.  The trick is to now repeat the success with my other titles.

2. What's the difference between being a midlist paperback writer and a successful indie author?
I’m more in touch with how well a title is performing than with my paperback books.  I won’t really know for weeks/months how well a paperback has done because the chain of custody is so long from bookstore to author, because of the delay from the bookstore, to distributor, to publisher and finally to me. In that situation, it’s hard to react to make the book a better seller.  With eBooks, I get to see how well my e-titles perform in real time and I can react accordingly.

3. Any general tips for the aspiring writers out there?
Take your writing seriously.  You may be new, but any time you put anything out for public consumption, you have a responsibility to the reader.  Make sure it’s the best work you can physically produce.  Make sure your book is edited and copy edited as good as any book put out by New York.  And remember, just because you’ve published a book, don’t think your work is done.  It won’t sell simply because it’s available.  Get it into the hands of reviewers and bloggers who will recommend it.

4. You have a diverse background. How does that spill over into your writing?
Probably the biggest way it shows up in my writing is by way of conflict.  I’ve seen firsthand and secondhand how people react to pressure situations.  Sometimes people triumph and sometimes they fail.  And failure leads to people making some spectacular errors in judgment.  This is great fuel for crime fiction.  Human fragility is always interesting.  Some people tell me they wouldn’t do what my characters do in my books, but you’d be surprised how people will react when their backs are against the wall.

5. What can readers expect next?
Print-wise, I have a new mystery series set in the world of motorsport.  The first book is called DID NOT FINISH and it’s loosely based on something that happened when I used to race.  There’ll be a paperback version of my eBook THE FALL GUY which will be out in November.  Ebook-wise, I hope to be releasing the first in the Terry Sheffield mysteries, which features an English guy who becomes a county sheriff in California.  The first book is called, NO SHOW and will be out before the end of the year.

Thanks, Simon, and best of luck--and all the other stuff besides luck!

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My Amazing Digital Year

It was one year ago today, Dec. 22, that I finally decided to try this "e-book thing" I'd heard all the kids raving about. I was dubious about the whole self-publishing movement and I still wasn't sure people were willing to "read books on computer." I'd been taught that serious writers never self-publish, and if I had been offered a bottom-of-the-barrel paperback deal, I would have taken it.
Still, I wasn't going to risk the whole shooting match, and I was shopping a couple of newer manuscripts. But I figured I would put up an old novella, Burial to Follow, and hardly anyone would notice, especially those peers I was so worried about. I did the cover myself, with art taken from the DIRT comic book. Yeah, it's a terribly cheesy cover. I sent it through Amazon for the Kindle, a device I'd read a lot about but had never seen.

And I sold two copies as 2009 drew to a close, but I also uploaded The Red Church, my most successful novel. I had held the rights for more than a year, getting a couple of small foreign deals, but I couldn't figure out a way to get it back in print. Of course, by "print" I was thinking of cranking up printing presses and spending thousands of dollars and worrying about bookstore orders.

I sold one copy of The Red Church before midnight, Dec. 31. In January, when the price was $1.99 and I was making a 35 percent royalty, I sold 67 copies of Red Church and 12 of Burial to Follow. The next month, I sold 413 copies combined. In March, I sold 771 copies as I added another book. It still wasn't much money, but it began to look reasonable and I softened my stance on self-publishing.

April took me a step back to 667 copies total. March moved up to 793, followed by 1,119 in June, 1,152 in July, and back down to 1,146 in August, when Amazon's 70 percent royalty kicked in and I raised some prices to $2.99.

I haven't done an analysis of how many titles I added during this time, or which book was selling at what price, but I had at least four novels up by then, as well as four or five story collections. Individually, nothing was knocking it out of the park, but collectively it looked like The Little Engine That Could.

During this time I'd been called by a Big Agent who had some interest, though primarily it was for ghostwriting, which would only interest me if it was a pay-off-the-house job. The third time I heard "I can't sell this," I didn't waste another second. I started putting everything up on Kindle as soon as it was edited, proofread, and formatted.

Back to numbers. September made a nice little jump, to 1,949 copies, and my first United Kingdom sales trickled in. October saw the first significant surge, up to 2,799 copies. November got crazy when Disintegration broke into the Kindle Top 100, reaching as high as #30 overall. For the month, I sold 12,422 Kindle e-books.

I'll be down for December, as Disintegration did its inevitable cooling, and as of last night I had 5,810 sales for the month to date. All these numbers are for Kindle e-books in the U.S. only. My U.K. numbers are still small in comparison but growing steadily. The Red Church sold 4,764 copies in a year, eight years after its original release and about six years after the publisher had left it for dead. I'm happy to see it is not dead, that people still read it and respond to it. That's one of the best things about this new era: nothing has to die. Ideas can fade and bounce back in a natural ebb and flow and readers can find them in their own time.

In my first full year in the Scott Nicholson industry, I sold 29,120 copies on the U.S. Kindle. I had some print-on-demand paper sales and additional e-book sales on other devices like Nook, Kobo, Sony, and iPad, but Amazon is my main outlet. After Jan. 1, many authors will be blogging about their numbers and their success. I'm not competing at a J.A. Konrath level (thanks for the inspiration, Joe) or an Amanda Hocking level, and I'm not laying out these numbers to brag or send anyone scurrying to measure themselves against me. But I have a pretty nice level that works for me and is easy to sustain and build, and that's all any writer should seek.

I don't even know how much money I made, and I wouldn't talk about that anyway, but I do mix my prices between 99 cents and $3.99. Suffice to say that's more copies than I sold in any of my last four mass-market releases, and I made more money in 2010 than in any year in which I was writing for New York. It's easy to get caught up in real-time numbers and rankings and feel like it's all slippery when you move down a few thousand slots in the rankings. But this is the first time I've stepped back and looked at the big picture, and it's pretty stunning.

If I were running a real business, like selling widgets, it's the kind of growth I could take to a bank. It trends pretty solid and steady, with plenty of potential for growth, considering Amazon is claiming 8 million Kindle sales this year. Sure, I have lots of books out now, maybe around 20, and that's swelling my numbers, but my response to that is: Why in the world do I care how many books it takes? I have them and people like them. I'd be stupid to release one a year like major authors do. I want readers to find all my books at any time. And I will write more. That's what I do.

But I also know I didn't do much besides what I love, and I would have written the books anyway. More than 30,000 of you took a bigger risk than I did. You said, "This Scott Nicholson guy is worth a little of my time and money." And I don't take that lightly at all. Thank you.

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AS I DIE LYING launches Nov. 6

Today's stop is at True Book Addict, comment at my post to win one of two Kindles. Be sure to stop here at my blog tomorrow when I'll have a guest post from David Niall Wilson, successful author and owner of Crossroads Press. Don't forget, Nov. 6 is the official launch of AS I DIE LYING, on sale for 99 cents for a limited time only. I'll be at bestselling author Karen McQuestion's blog on launch day. See you there!

We did it!

Friends, followers, and people who said, "Do it," (including poppa-in-law who got out of bed to buy a copy), thanks for your generous support. As of this writing, my dark crime thriller Disintegration is at #98 on the Amazon Kindle bestseller list. I appreciate your help in telling friends about the book and reviewing it. I'll be talking more about my "evil twin" book in the days to come.

It's now #1 in the "Hard-boiled mystery" category, the third different category in which I've hit #1 this year for Kindle. It's #3 in the overall "Romantic suspense" list, coincidentally enough right behind two novels by J.R. Rain, with whom I am releasing "Cursed!" in a couple of weeks.

Success is an odd thing. I feel exactly the same, and I have the exact same obligations. I wake up every day with 25 hours of work ahead of me. I wake up and smile the first thing every morning, because I am next to the Lefthanded Puppeteer. I wake up and thank God because i have such a wonderful, exciting life. At night, I don't pray to sell more books, I ask how I can be a better man, father, husband, human being.

Disintegration was written at what was probably the lowest point in my life. Maybe it saved my life. It's not a perfect book by any means, and not everyone will like it, but it was the best I could do at the time. That's all I aim for these days. The best I can do. And I can't do these things without you, and they don't matter a bit if you don't share them. For all the reviewers, taggers, and readers, thanks--and good luck now that your chances of winning a Kindle on the Kindle Giveaway blog tour have doubled!

Don't miss today's stop at http://www.briankeene.com

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Disintegration breaking through

Thanks for helping my dark crime thriller Disintegration hit #147 in the Amazon Kindle store. I appreciate your help in telling friends about the book and reviewing it. I'll be talking more about my "evil twin" book in the days to come.

It's now #1 in the "Hard-boiled mystery" category, the third different category in which I've hit #1 this year for Kindle. It's a book I'm relieved to have out there and over with, and now all that's left is for you to take out of it what you can. This one feels like "success."

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